As many as 30% of elderly Americans fall at least once each year. Over half of those falls occur at home, often due to remediable hazards. Hazard remediation typically begins with an expert hazard assessment, but arranging such assessments is beyond the capability of most care-delivery organizations. In addition, the cost of in-person assessments is often beyond the financial means of most patients. A second problem is that most elderly Americans (and their children) would not know how to find an installation contractor to remediate hazards reliably or cost-effectively. The result is that most elderly Americans are consigned to living in homes that are much less safe than they could be.
Paper or computerized forms may be used to increase the efficiency and quality of safety assessments. The forms organize the assessment and management of information on how to mitigate or eliminate certain environmental hazards. Some large care-delivery organizations provide in-person, expert hazard assessments and remediation services to patients. However, such methods are typically costly, inefficient and unaffordable for many patients.